Twentieth Century Prose Literature. All books first editions and first printings, except as stated.IMPORTANT!

This is the ROBERT TEMPLE BIBLIOGRAPHICAL ARCHIVE. It contains descriptions and notes relating to almost 18,000 titles in the fields of British and American literature, being the bulk of the stock that has passed through our hands since 1984, with the addition of a few earlier items of especial interest. Books currently in stock are not included, and it is therefore necessary to supplement your search by looking at our Current Catalogues. For the most part full bibliographical descriptions are given, though for some earlier items, catalogued when computing space was more restricted the details given are quite brief. For an account of the conventions adopted, the abbreviations used, and reference sources consulted, please see our information pages.

Please note: The arrangement here is the same as that adopted in our current catalogues, and as there our larger files are presented in sections for ease of downloading. At the end of each section you are invited to browse the next.

ROBERT TEMPLE BOOKS MODERN FIRSTS BIBLIOGRAPHICAL ARCHIVE, File J: Twentieth Century Prose Literature. All books first editions and first printings, except as stated.

A selection including work by Graham Greene, Anthony Powell, Evelyn Waugh, Osbert Lancaster, Herbert Read, Edward Ardizzone, Nigel Balchin, John Betjeman, Elizabeth Bowen, Cyril Connolly, Walter de la Mare, William Empson, Christopher Isherwood, Gerald Kersh, Rose Macaulay, R.K. Narayan, William Plomer, V.S. Pritchett, Stevie Smith, James Thurber, etc., etc. An Appendix includes a piece by Evelyn Waugh written for a pre-production dummy issue of the magazine, together with two pieces by Waugh and one by Lancaster written for issues that were never to appear, and here first published - as is also, of course Graham Greene's Preface.

ROBERT TEMPLE BOOKS MODERN FIRSTS BIBLIOGRAPHICAL ARCHIVE, File J: Twentieth Century Prose Literature. All books first editions and first printings, except as stated.

ANTHOLOGY. Notes From the New Underground. An anthology Edited by Jesse Kornbluth. [Viking Press,] New York, N.D. [1968]. Unrevised proofs plastic springbound in printed yellow card wrappers, first and last leaves blank, the pages numbered by hand; the initial blank with pasted-on photocopy of the American publisher's advance catalogue description of the volume; the upper wrapper bears a pasted-on slip giving details relating to the American edition, including a note of the publication date as ‘November 20', and also the pasted-on trade slip of the agent in England to whom this advance copy was sent in order that an English publisher might be found. Covers marked, otherwise a very nice copy.

"A fascinating job of documentation and distillation of what is being written today by the alienated for the alienated. A majority of the selections are culled from a vast array of so-called underground newspapers, but Kornbluth . . . has also ranged beyond to include key utterances by such elder statesmen as Allen Ginsberg, and the study of the Beatles by Richard Poirier . . ." - publisher's blurb. Includes pieces by Goodman, McClure, Ginsberg, Paul McCartney, Burroughs, Leary, Snyder, Alan Watts, etc, etc. British Library, Oxford, and York copies only on COPAC, all the American edition. Possibly it did not find an English publisher . . .

ROBERT TEMPLE BOOKS MODERN FIRSTS BIBLIOGRAPHICAL ARCHIVE, File J: Twentieth Century Prose Literature. All books first editions and first printings, except as stated.

ANTHOLOGY. The odd volume Literary and artistic. Edited by B.W. Matz. Published in aid of the Funds of the national Book trade provident society. Simpkin, Marshall, Hamilton, Kent and Co. Ltd., 1908. Double cr.8vo; one gathering at beginning, three at end, commercial and book trade advertisements, printed on supercalendered paper; frontispiece and six plates in full colour; sixteen double sided plates in black and white; large crimson wrappers, printed with commercial advertisements in black on inside and back wrappers, front wrapper printed in black and with full colour onlay. Large edges of wrappers slightly frayed; otherwise a fine copy.

ROBERT TEMPLE BOOKS MODERN FIRSTS BIBLIOGRAPHICAL ARCHIVE, File J: Twentieth Century Prose Literature. All books first editions and first printings, except as stated.

ANTHOLOGY. The Old school. Essays By Divers [sic] Hands. Edited by Graham Greene. Jonathan Cape, Thirty Bedford Square, 1934. Lge.post 8vo; dark charcoal cloth, blocked with publisher's monogram device on back cover, lettered on front cover and spine, and with three short rules on spine, all pale blue-green; lower-edges uncut. Slight general wear to covers, and back end-papers slightly cracking; front paste-down scuffed where a label has been removed; otherwise in general a nice copy.

ROBERT TEMPLE BOOKS MODERN FIRSTS BIBLIOGRAPHICAL ARCHIVE, File J: Twentieth Century Prose Literature. All books first editions and first printings, except as stated.

ANTHOLOGY. The penguin New writing 27. Edited by John Lehmann. Penguin Books, London and New York, April 1946. Four plates in full colour, 8pp. in monochrome; white wrappers, cut flush, printed in black, lime green, and blue. Very nice copy.

Contributions by Sansom, Osbert Sitwell, Stephen Potter, Norman Swallow, etc., here first printed; first English publication of work by Edith Sitwell, MacNeice, Day Lewis, Spender, Heath-Stubbs, etc. One of the colour plates is by Michael Ayrton, several of those in monochrome by Roger Furse.

Includes work by Edith Sitwell, Denton Welch, Terence Tiller, Saul Bellow, Rupert Croft-Cooke, C.V. Wedgwood, David Higham, etc., all either here first published or appearing for the first time in England.

ROBERT TEMPLE BOOKS MODERN FIRSTS BIBLIOGRAPHICAL ARCHIVE, File J: Twentieth Century Prose Literature. All books first editions and first printings, except as stated.

ANTHOLOGY. Printers' Pie: A Festival Souvenir of the Printers' Pension, Almshouse And Orphan Asylum Corporation, 1904. Published at The offices of "The Sphere", Great New Street, 1904. Double demy 8vo, wire-stabbed; 16pp. commercial advertisements on semi-art paper precede half-title; final gathering of semi-art paper includes one leaf of commercial advertisements; pp.[xvi]+114; full colour frontispiece, with tissue guard, four plates in colour, eight in black and white, two full page illustrations in half-tone (included in last gathering), and a two-page facsimile on text-paper; pale brown large wrappers, printed in blue on front, back, and inside wrappers, with full colour onlay on front and back, the back and inside wrappers bearing commercial advertisements; issued without end-papers. Very nice copy. Scarce.

ROBERT TEMPLE BOOKS MODERN FIRSTS BIBLIOGRAPHICAL ARCHIVE, File J: Twentieth Century Prose Literature. All books first editions and first printings, except as stated.

ANTHOLOGY. The pushcart prize, IX: best of the small presses. . . .With an index to the first nine volumes. An annual press small reader Edited by Bill Henderson With The Pushcart Prize editors. Introduction by Jayne Anne Phillips. Published by The Pushcart Press, 1984-85 Edition. Best of the small presses the pushcart prize, IX: [sic] N.D. [July, 1984]. Double super Roy.16mo, perfect bound; leaf bearing publisher's device on recto, blank on verso, precedes half-title, another follows last leaf of text; double-spread title utilizing verso of half-title; Acknowledgments leaf and leaf bearing dedication follow title-leaf; blank at end; pp.588+[i]+[iii]; quarter dark blue rough buckram, lettered and with short rule silver on spine, pale greenish-blue boards and end-papers; blue and white head and tail bands; fore-edges uncut. Fine copy in dust-wrapper.

Important, as much as anything, for the Index. Includes work by William Stafford, Richard Eberhart and William Carlos Williams, Raymond Carver, Hayden Carruth, Malcolm Cowley, etc., etc., as well as an Introduction by Jayne Anne Phillips.

ROBERT TEMPLE BOOKS MODERN FIRSTS BIBLIOGRAPHICAL ARCHIVE, File J: Twentieth Century Prose Literature. All books first editions and first printings, except as stated.

ANTHOLOGY. The queen's Gift book. In aid of Queen Mary's convalescent Auxiliary hospitals For soldiers and sailors who Have lost their limbs in the war. Hodder and Stoughton, N.D. [1915]. Cr.4to; portrait frontispiece, and eleven plates, printed in full colour and laid on to sheets of buff paper printed with frames and captions in blue; numerous other illustrations on text-paper; pale blue linen grain cloth, ruled blind, blocked and lettered dark blue, on front cover, lettered gilt down spine. Spine and edges of covers very slightly faded, and boards just a trifle warped; a very little light foxing; otherwise a nice copy.

ROBERT TEMPLE BOOKS MODERN FIRSTS BIBLIOGRAPHICAL ARCHIVE, File J: Twentieth Century Prose Literature. All books first editions and first printings, except as stated.

ANTHOLOGY. The Radio listener's Week-end book. A selection From notable broadcasts of The past five years. Edited by John Pringle. Odhams Press Limited, N.D. [1950]. (Bears the odd notice on verso of title: ‘Copyright T. 1250.Q.'). Numerous illustrations in the text by ‘Biro'; turquoise cloth lettered dark blue on spine. Fine copy in very slightly rubbed dust-wrapper. Scarce.

We know of three issues of this volume in cloth, but we have never previously seen a copy in wrappers: it is possible that it may be a proof. Contributors include Ethel Manin, Alun Lewis, Rhys Davies, Alex Comfort, F.T. Prince, George Barker, Julian Symons, W.S. Graham, Richard Church, Ruthven Todd, Kathleen Raine, Geoffrey Grigson, Anne Ridler, Lawrence Durrell, Sean O'Faolain, Frank O'Connor, etc. The third volume of Selected Writing.

Issued (according to the dust-wrapper) in aid of the Toc H War Services Fund in connection with an event held at the Royal Albert Hall on 16th June, 1943. The dust-wrapper bears the words ‘Signed copy', and the front wrapper the signature of Charles B. Cochran, who edited the volume. Contributors include Max Beerbohm (foreword, and cartoon of Noel Coward), Noel Coward, James Agate, and Cochran himself, the subjects treated ranging from ‘Our Back-Street', through ‘War Songs' and ‘The Miracle of Gilbert and Sullivan', to ‘Grand Opera'.

ROBERT TEMPLE BOOKS MODERN FIRSTS BIBLIOGRAPHICAL ARCHIVE, File J: Twentieth Century Prose Literature. All books first editions and first printings, except as stated.

ANTHOLOGY. Spectator Harvest. 1952. Lge.16mo; two blanks before half-title, three at end, the outermost serving as paste-downs; orange fine cloth blocked and lettered blue down spine. A nice copy in the dust-wrapper.

Includes work by Anna Kavan, William Carlos Williams, Muriel Spark, Stevie Smith, Peter Levi, etc. The second issue, with the Vision Press device on the spine, which also does not bear the word ‘Springtime'.

ROBERT TEMPLE BOOKS MODERN FIRSTS BIBLIOGRAPHICAL ARCHIVE, File J: Twentieth Century Prose Literature. All books first editions and first printings, except as stated.

ANTHOLOGY. The survival years. A collection of American writings of the 1940's Edited by Jack Salzman. Pegasus, New York, 1969. Double lge.post 16mo; red buckram blocked and lettered white down spine; blue and white headband. Near-fine copy in dust-wrapper.

ROBERT TEMPLE BOOKS MODERN FIRSTS BIBLIOGRAPHICAL ARCHIVE, File J: Twentieth Century Prose Literature. All books first editions and first printings, except as stated.

ANTHOLOGY. Unit 1. The modern movement In English architecture Painting and sculpture. Edited by Herbert Read. Cassell and Company Ltd, London: Toronto, Melbourne: Sydney, 1934. Double cr.4to; numerous illustrations on text-paper; final leaf blank but for printer's imprint on verso; yellow Sundour cloth lettered milk chocolate on front cover and down spine. Covers a little rubbed and marked and with some amateur restoration to the large enamelled areas of lettering on front cover; otherwise a nice copy of a very scarce book.

This copy given by H.A. Gentry (business manager at Cassells) to his son Bryen at Christmas 1936 was subsequently acquired by Desmond Flower who added his book-label and a holograph pencilled note, authenticating the provenance, and recounting how he had been approached by Paul Nash to publish the volume. V. Flower's autobiography, ‘Fellows in Foolscap', pp.137-8, for a more detailed comment on the aims and objects of the Unit 1 group of artists, and his opinion in respect of the present volume that it is "one of our [i.e., Cassells] most interesting publications [of 1936], and one of the scarcest if anyone wants to get hold of it second-hand to-day". We would not disagree with him on either count! The volume consists of an Introduction by Herbert Read (incorporating a long letter from Paul Nash) and, to quote Flower again, "a uniform entry on each artist: a photograph of his head and hands (the latter very interesting), an essay by him on his beliefs and practices, and reproductions of his work. The artists were Barbara Hepworth, Henry Moore, John Armstrong, John Biffe, Edward Burra, Tristram Hillier, Paul Nash, Ben Nicholson, Edward Wadsworth, Wells Coates and Colin Lucas. The last two were the architects." The note on Burra was written by Douglas Cooper; the rest by the artists themselves.

Letters from Marvell, Gay, Pope, Chesterfield, Isaac Watts, Frances Sheridan, Richardson, Sterne, Burke, Crabbe, Byron, Shelley, Maria Edgeworth, La Rochefaucauld, Voltaire, Goethe, Herder, etc., etc. Some of the letters are not unimportant. One of those from Sterne, for instance, is that in which he offered Dodsley the first two volumes of Tristram Shandy: "The Plan, as you will percieve [sic], is a most extensive one, - taking in not only the Weak part of the Sciences, in wch. the true point of ridicule lies - but everything else, which I find laugh-at-able in my way." This letter is one of those shown also in a folding facsimile, along with letters from Gay, Shelley, and Goethe.

ROBERT TEMPLE BOOKS MODERN FIRSTS BIBLIOGRAPHICAL ARCHIVE, File J: Twentieth Century Prose Literature. All books first editions and first printings, except as stated.

ANTHOLOGY. Victoriana: A symposium Of Victorian wisdom Edited, and compiled from many original sources, by Margaret Barton And Osbert Sitwell With a frontispiece in colour by Max Beerbohm And an introduction by Augustine Rivers And a preface by Osbert Sitwell. Duckworth, 3 Henrietta Street, W.C.2, 1931. Demy 8vo; frontispiece in colours; rough yellow cloth, lettered gilt on spine. Fine copy in slightly chipped and frayed dust-wrapper designed by Beerbohm.

ROBERT TEMPLE BOOKS MODERN FIRSTS BIBLIOGRAPHICAL ARCHIVE, File J: Twentieth Century Prose Literature. All books first editions and first printings, except as stated.

ANTHOLOGY. Voices from the crowd Against the H-Bomb. Edited by David Boulton. Peter Owen, 1964. Demy 8vo; two plates; three blanks at end, the last serving as paste-down; tangerine boards, blocked with publisher's monogram device and lettered gilt on spine. Fine copy in dust-wrapper.

ROBERT TEMPLE BOOKS MODERN FIRSTS BIBLIOGRAPHICAL ARCHIVE, File J: Twentieth Century Prose Literature. All books first editions and first printings, except as stated.

ANTHOLOGY. Where are The dead? Cassell and Com- pany, Ltd, 1928. Blank before half-title; grey-fawn cloth, ruled blind on front cover, ruled and lettered black on spine. First and last few leaves and edges foxed; otherwise a fine copy in dust-wrapper.

ROBERT TEMPLE BOOKS MODERN FIRSTS BIBLIOGRAPHICAL ARCHIVE, File J: Twentieth Century Prose Literature. All books first editions and first printings, except as stated.

ANTHOLOGY. [Cover title:] World of Neighbours. A Contact Book, [on verso of front free end-paper:] 1947. Double med.4to; cream end-papers printed with double page map/index in orange, yellow, and black, editorial/copyright details on verso of front free end-paper in black, line vignette in orange, advertisement in black on verso of back free end-paper; pp.i-xxviii at front, xxix-xliv at back, bearing mixed advertising/editorial contents printed on supercalendared paper variously in black and white, colours, and full colour; pp.1-88 printed with text and illustrations in black and white and colours on cream toned paper, pp.89-104 printed with text and illustrations in black and white on supercalendared paper; issued without half-title or title leaves; white boards printed in black, yellow and orange. Head and tail of spine, and adjacent edges of boards a little rubbed, and covers very slightly darkened; otherwise a fine copy. Very scarce.

Includes ‘Why Do I Write? An exchange of letters between V.S. Pritchett, Elizabeth Bowen, and Graham Greene', preceding its separate appearance by one year, as well as work by Peter Ustinov, Cecil Beaton, etc.

ROBERT TEMPLE BOOKS MODERN FIRSTS BIBLIOGRAPHICAL ARCHIVE, File J: Twentieth Century Prose Literature. All books first editions and first printings, except as stated.

ANTHOLOGY. The year's work In Literature 1950. Edited by John Lehmann. Published for The British Council By Longmans, Green and Co., 1951. Frontispiece portrait and twelve plates; white wrappers printed in blue and black. Near-fine copy. Scarce.

Contributors include John Lehmann, Noel Annan (on Bertrand Russell), Stephen Spender (on ‘The Cocktail Party'), Walter Allen (on Orwell), Kathleen Raine; the plates include portraits of Bertrand Russell, Spender, Sacheverell Sitwell, David Gascoyne, Walter de la Mare, and Eliot with the producer and cast of ‘The Cocktail Party'. Review copy, with the price and publication date written in pencil on the upper margin of the half-title.

ROBERT TEMPLE BOOKS MODERN FIRSTS BIBLIOGRAPHICAL ARCHIVE, File J: Twentieth Century Prose Literature. All books first editions and first printings, except as stated.

ARLEN (Michael, i.e. Dikran Kouyoumdjian). The London venture By Michael Arlen With drawings By Michel Sevier. 1919, London: William Heinemann. F'cap 8vo; blank before half-title; wood-cut frontispiece and other illustrations on text-paper; integral advertisement leaf at end; pp.[xii (including frontispiece)]+[178]+[ii]; grey-fawn buckram blocked with publisher's device black on back cover, blocked pictorially black with a design by Sevier on front cover, lettered black on front cover and spine. Some barely visible damp-spotting of back cover; dedication leaf lightly foxed, with off-setting; poor quality paper lightly embrowned on first and last few leaves; nonetheless a near-nice copy.

The author's first book. Printed on antique toned paper. The English Catalogue of Books gives the date of publication as January 1920, and copies (in black cloth, blocked and lettered white) are in fact seen with 1920 on the title-page. It was however intended to be issued for the Christmas season of 1919, and some copies were produced so dated, as the present example shows. Arlen's real name appears only at the end of the foreword (headed ‘apologia pro nomine meo').

ROBERT TEMPLE BOOKS MODERN FIRSTS BIBLIOGRAPHICAL ARCHIVE, File J: Twentieth Century Prose Literature. All books first editions and first printings, except as stated.

ARLEN (Michael). Men Dislike women. A Romance. William Heinemann Limited, 1931. Imp.16mo in half sheets; title-page printed in red and black; black buckram, blocked gilt on front cover, blind on back cover, blocked and lettered gilt on spine. Small nick in cloth at head of spine; name scrawled on front end-paper; otherwise a fine copy.